Just read about the new 4000 series being released by ATI from what I read with a couple of weeks the 4850's should be dropping if what I read wasn't total crap.... anyways though again the info I read priced them at 200 bucks or so and I am wondering if anyone knows how the 4850 will stack up against the 8800. Not have to hook up a seperate cable from the PSU seems like a good thing to me but will it sacrafice power for that? But yeah I didn't see any threads talking about this yet so I thought I would start one up.

It should surpass the 8800s. It comes pretty close with the 9800GTX from what I've read. It's not a top-card though, this is a mid-range card so you need to keep that in mind. The HD4870X2 will be ATI's top card.

Yup. The 4870 likely won't even challenge the GTX 260 but the price/performance ratio should be pretty good. Maybe the 260/280's prices will come down because of it. I wish the 4870X2 would come sooner but I've been hearing July for that one.

Yup. The 4870 likely won't even challenge the GTX 260 but the price/performance ratio should be pretty good. Maybe the 260/280's prices will come down because of it. I wish the 4870X2 would come sooner but I've been hearing July for that one.

Its said to be 20% faster than the 9800gtx, which would mean it will challenge GTX280 and 260.

4850 will compete with the 9800 and the 4870 is going to compete with the GT260. Both ATI cards will be dramatically cheaper than the cards they are up against. ATI will easily win the performance per dollar war this round.

Well I feel kinda dumb because the stuff I read yesterday seems to have vanished completely from the place it was... but from what I cam remember about what I read they talked about how because the core is more energy efficient it will not be needing extraneous PSU cables plugged into it. And that because the chip is smaller it will be easier for them to eventually put more of them on a single card. They are already thinking about a 4 core beast if I am remember what I read at all correctly. But yeah as someone who has been lusting over an 8800 for a long time with these cards coming out and at a price that puts them fairly close to the 8800 makes me VERY curious. At the very least it might drive the 8800's prices down a wee bit... What the where does this optimism come from?> just when I think I have exterminated it all more just rears its cheerful head.... Where did I put the baseball bat with the rusty nails through it...